International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi arrived in Tehran on Friday for talks on Iran's nuclear program, following the discovery in Iran of enriched uranium particles close to the level to make an atomic bomb .
Mr. Grossi was welcomed at the airport by the spokesman for the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, then met the director of this agency, Mohammad Eslami.
Nothing has filtered on the content of their meeting.
During this two-day visit, Mr. Grossi should meet President Ebrahim Raisi, as well as other Iranian officials, according to a diplomatic source.
According to a confidential IAEA report consulted by AFP on Tuesday, particles of uranium enriched to 83.7%, just under the 90% needed to produce an atomic bomb, were detected in the underground factory of Fordo, a hundred kilometers south of the capital Tehran.
Iran, which denies wanting to acquire nuclear weapons, justified itself by citing "involuntary fluctuations" during the enrichment process and by assuring "not to have made any attempt to enrich beyond of 60%".
France ruled on Thursday that it was "an unprecedented and extremely serious development".
During his visit, Rafael Grossi will try to find out more and obtain "strengthened access to the site and an increase in the number of inspections", according to a diplomatic source in Vienna, where the specialized agency is based. of ONU.
Mr. Grossi is expected to speak to the press on his return to Vienna late Saturday afternoon, according to the IAEA.
This short visit comes almost a year after the Argentine diplomat's last trip to Tehran in March 2022, at a time when an agreement seemed possible for a resumption of the endless negotiations between the great powers and Iran on the file. nuclear.
But, in a geopolitical context turned upside down by the war in Ukraine, this opportunity was missed.
Since then, concerns have continued to grow in the United States, Europe and in certain Middle Eastern countries such as Israel, over Iran's progress towards mastery of atomic weapons.
The ambition of the head of the IAEA is therefore to "relaunch the dialogue" after months of deterioration, with Iran freeing itself every day a little more from the agreement concluded in 2015 to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions.
This agreement has been stalled since the unilateral withdrawal of the United States decided in 2018 by President Donald Trump.
Tehran hopes that a lifting, even partial, of the severe international sanctions will breathe new life into its economy, weakened in particular by the lack of foreign investment.
In its technological race, Tehran multiplies the number of centrifuges on its sites, scattered in the country, and continues to enrich uranium at high levels.
Iran has already been the subject of a call to order from the UN nuclear police during the last meeting of the Board of Governors, in November 2022, for its lack of cooperation concerning traces of enriched uranium found on three undeclared sites.
The head of the CIA, William Burns, recently expressed concern about the dazzling progress of Iran's nuclear program, judging that "it would be enough (for Iran, editor's note) a few weeks to reach 90%, if it decided to cross that line.
However, there are other levels to reach, and the United States "does not believe that the supreme leader in Iran", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "has taken the decision to resume the militarization of the program suspended or terminated at the end of 2003 ", according to him.
At the same time, Washington is alarmed by the "dangerous" escalation in military cooperation between Iran and Russia, with Tehran being accused of supplying drones used in Ukraine, which Iran denies.
For its part, Moscow is likely to provide advanced military equipment to Iran, enabling the latter to better deal with threats, particularly from Israel.
03/03/2023 19:31:45 - Tehran (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
